We actually do include Life of Fred as an optional supplement for elementary grades and an alternative core curriculum for high school. My seven-year-old loves it!
Re introducing reading separately from writing, this is recommended in The Well-Trained Mind and A Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading and worked well with my two sons. Both learned to read fluently at age four, but needed a couple years beyond that to develop the fine motor skills and attention span needed to form letters well. That said, many kids are ready to write at an earlier age and we try to make it easy for parents to edit the default curriculum and do things like move the first-grade writing component to kindergarten. The main point is that learning to read doesn't need to be coupled with writing.
The typo and awkward phrasing you mentioned are fixed now. :)
Yeah, I did a lot of looking at these kinds of things during the Pandemic Year (didn't everyone?) and the single nicest thing to see, as far as evaluating them, was a kind of "here's what the material for a week in grade X looks like", or a sample unit if they're more unit-oriented. It's little enough that you're not giving away anything very useful on its own, but at least gives visitors a concrete idea of what they'd be committing to and what they'd be getting, if they pay.
I'd stress adding a sample for each grade, if possible. It makes it easier for your prospective buyers/subscribers to imagine what starting this program might look like, since most will be looking, initially, at a single grade or a few grades, not the program as a whole, and 6th grade, say, can be a whole lot different from 2nd grade. Avoid making them try to guess how the form and content for a lesson for a grade they're not (currently) interested in will look for a grade they are interested in.
Super bonus points if you can record a couple of the lessons being delivered and post them on Youtube or whatever—the more you can convince prospects that they can use this and have it actually work, the better, I'd expect, and videos can help fill in gaps in imagination or confidence in turning written materials into a real lesson. Kinda like how sometimes a YouTube video of a board game with complex rules being played can make one more certain about how to run it, than reading the rules a couple times.
That's a good idea. Maybe we can include some screenshots in the homepage or How It Works page to give visitors a better idea of what it looks like when you create an account and generate curricula.
Thanks, this is helpful to hear. It's interesting that one of the main pieces of feedback we get is about pricing. Some people say that it is overpriced, others that we should be charging more.
To answer your question, we have quite a bit of original content and functionality beyond the book lists and transcripts. And based on my experience assembling customized homeschooling curricula for my kids, the book curation in itself is a major value add. If it saves the parent just a few hours of research time, or connects the student with just a few resources beyond what parents could find on their own, it would be worth the cost for many families.
The main differentiator in a homeschooling curriculum is what the student will spend his/her time doing and reading, and optimizing this seems like it would be worth paying for a service rather than relying on free book lists from the internet. That's our hypothesis, anyway.
Your product is great. I do have a pain with the price point. I live outside the US and it's simply expensive.
Maybe consider regional pricing? If you include this and region specific books as well, your service will be golden.
Btw, what stops someone from paying for just a month or two and collating all your plans and then use it for the rest of their lives without paying you anymore? I mean this genuinely and not with ill intent.
Regarding pricing, I'd be happy to pay an amount as one time purchase for the entire curriculum vs a subscription model. Or pay one time for each bundle/grade. Just some ideas.
Thanks! I am familiar with some of these and a big fan of The Well-Trained Mind.
Our curriculum uses "Great Books" in a broader sense of quality fiction and nonfiction literature, which includes classical Western literature but also lots of modern and non-Western books.
